Back to the Bottle
by Casteline
Summary: Drinking makes it easier to forget. That's what he tells himself. Light Destiel.


_This one has kinda been floating around him my head since Cas "died" and I'm only just now writing it because the soul-eating "inspiration" always hits right around midterms. I should be studying. What am I doing instead? Filling recs and fighting the urge to write ten other pieces that are threatening to start nawing away at my soul._

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**Back to the Bottle**

Dean Winchester has always been a drinker. A heavy drinker, borderline alcoholic. It's that way with a lot of hunters, probably most of them. They see a lot of bad things, terrible things happening to good people. There's always someone they can't save. A lot of someones. So many that sometimes the lost out way the saved. So many that they lose count. Dean does count. He knows exactly how many people he's lost, how many he couldn't save. He tries not to think about it. He tries not to think about the fact that the number is still growing.

Drinking makes it easier to forget.

That's what he tells himself. He tells himself that if he drinks, he won't remember every one of their faces. That he won't remember the day his mom died like it was yesterday. That he won't remember the day his dad died. That he won't remember holding Sammy in his arms as his little brother bled to death. That he won't remember the faces of children dead because he couldn't save them.

If he drinks, he won't remember every face of every person he tortured in Hell.

So he tells himself.

When Sammy dies (again; another memory in which he failed to save his own flesh and blood), he wants to drown himself in booze until he can't remember who he is. But he made a promise. He promised Sam he'd go find Lisa and Ben, that he'd be happy. So he does it. He lives with Lisa and he doesn't drink so much, because there's a kid in the house, and he didn't want to be _that_ kind of step-dad.

But he isn't happy.

But then Sammy is alive again and they're back together, hunting. And it's back to the bottle because they're losing good people and they're working for Crowley and they're not killing the monsters they should be killing. And Cas is no help.

And Cas is dead. One more person he couldn't save. One more person he cared about, dead.

He picks up another bottle.

"Why don't you call for him," Sam suggests, early on.

"Why don't _you _call for him," Dean snarls back.

Sam sighed. "I've tried. I've screamed 'til I was blue in the face. He's not answering."

"And what makes you think I'll have any more luck than you?"

"Because it _you_," he says. "Because he always comes when you call."

"He's _dead_," Dean almost shouted. "Dead! Do you not understand that? He's not coming back, Sam. It doesn't make a difference who calls for him, he's dead."

Sam is quite for a few moments. "You could at least try."

He doesn't though, because Cas is dead and no amount of screaming will bring him back.

When he's sober, he can hear Cas' voice. He can hear him calling out to him.

_Dean. Dean, can you hear me?_

He pretends he doesn't hear. The voice isn't real.

_Dean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

It's all in his head. Sammy isn't hearing Cas' voice from beyond the grave. They haven't talked about it, of course, because Dean sure as hell isn't going to start _that_ conversation. But he knows Sammy, and if their dead angel was talking to him, he'd have mentioned it. He's the one that likes to be all touchy feely about this crap.

_Dean, please._

Dean reaches for another bottle.

To his surprise, the alcohol is pretty successful in drowning out the voice of his angel. So he drinks more, and more, and more.

He drinks until Bobby and Sam try to hold an intervention. It wasn't anywhere near successful because Bobby is a hypocrite and Sammy can see that the nightmares are worse when he's sober.

He can see the looks Sammy gives him. He knows he tries to hide the bottles. Dean usually finds them, until Sam starts pouring them down the drain and handing them out to hobos. Dean just buys more bottles.

But his angel's voice is getting harder to drown out.

_Please, Dean, I need your help._

He drinks until Bobby is on his death bed, and then he drinks more.

Bobby is dead.

Dean is drunk, but Cas' voice is loud in his head and Bobby is dead. Somehow, he ends up on the roof of some building. There he stands, 14 stories up, in the pouring rain, screaming Cas' name.

"Cas, please," he begs. It's too much. He's lost too much. "If you're out there somewhere, please come back."

He gets no response. The voice in his head is silent.

"Please," he screams. "Please! I _need_ you."

He's pretty sure there are tears in his eyes but he doesn't give a damn because the rain washes them away.

"Please. Please."

He's almost given up, where there is loud crash of thunder and lightning lights up the sky for a split second. A glowing ball of light starts to form and Dean can't breathe. The light is pulsating and growing and he knows he should look away, advert his eyes, but he doesn't. He watches in awe as the light takes shape. Human shape. Cas shape.

The glowing stops.

"Cas," he breathes.

Castiel looks up at him, surprised at first. Before he can say a word, Dean's arms are wrapped around him in a tight embrace. For a moment, Cas doesn't know what to do. He hugs the hunter back.

Later, he explains. He had been dead, for real. He had not survived the encounter with the Leviathan. But a piece of him had, an imprint of his Grace in Dean Winchester. He just needed Dean to find it.


End file.
